There are many ways that organizations use wikis to help develop documentation; we've identified some trends:

• Internal wikis to manage projects
• Internal wikis to gather original content from designers, engineers, inventors
• External wikis to invite customers to engage with the writers in conversation
• External wikis to allow collaborative authoring in a public setting

Managing Projects

Many organizations introduce wikis as quick-and-easy internal project management tools. Wikis are easier to edit than websites, cheaper than many packaged applications, and suited to projects where the team is more interested in speed than in formality. Anything you can do with paragraphs and tables, you can do in a wiki.

Is it always necessary to manage a Project file, or send around spreadsheets and status reports in emails? If you can make a schedule in a table, send out a URL, and have team members update their information themselves, would that be more efficient? For many teams, it is.

Gathering Original Content

Wikis are very effective for projects where the initial content, such as a design document or specification, needs to be written, reviewed, and updated by the design team. A respected design methodology is to describe the product from a user perspective. This content can be used as seed material for future end-user documentation.

We've seen one software documentation project where the technical writer set up an outline during the design phase, and the engineers added content as they worked out their ideas. Then the writer edited the material, filled in gaps, and produced the PDF documentation in record time. 

Engaging with Customers

Most wikis allow either content edits, separate comments, or both. Comments are very nice for content that you do not want people to change. Comments are like responses to blogs; customers can write questions, point out errors, or add additional tips and pointers.

With the growing popularity of blogs, people are more willing every day to interact with the texts on websites they care about.

Collaborating in Public with the Public

Public or even semi-public collaborative authoring is still novel, and even controversial. For many companies it is simply out of the question. For some, it is seen as a strategic advantage, to leverage the far-flung knowledge of its employees and customers using a simple interface.